Protection
by Vorquellyn
Summary: A series of one shots taking place in the same universe as the Traveler by John Twelve Hawks
1. Protection

Disclaimer: That which is the product of John Twelve Hawks or Christopher Nolan is not mine.

* * *

The knock was polite but insistent. The young man on the other side of the door was all clean lines and self-possession. He had a face that could be anywhere from a young twenty-five to an old sixteen. His brown hair was slicked back severely and he was dressed like a missionary.

"Can I help you?" Miles asked carefully.

"I'm Arthur," the young man offered his hand. "I believe you knew my father. May I come in?"

Miles's gaze fell on a metal tube strapped over the young man's back. "Please do. Do I need to worry about my neighbors?"

"No," Arthur shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his face. His eyes ran over the walls and furniture like a hound scenting for a fox. Miles knew what he was thinking; about the tracer beads that could be hidden in cushions and microphones that could be hidden in the walls. The eyes were impassive to an outsider. Like all Harlequins, Arthur carried himself with the aggressive self-confidence of a predator as he prowled around the room.

"There's an Internet cafe fifteen minutes from here," Miles said slowly. He held up his cell phone and let Arthur see that he was turning it off and setting it down. "Your father enjoyed places like that."

"He liked the atmosphere," Arthur nodded approvingly. "I prefer buses and trains to cars. They feel so boxed in."

Thirty minutes later, Miles had thoroughly searched his clothes for tracer beads and had picked a random diner. By random, Miles did not mean any old diner. Arthur had pulled out a random number generator and used it to determine their stop and which place they were using. Miles had never enjoyed the company of Arthur's father but he had respected the man and what he stood for. The twisting path Arthur led him on reminded Miles of exactly why he had never enjoyed Pendragon's company.

"I'm here to protect your daughter," Arthur said after they had ordered coffee and the server had vanished behind the counter.

"I thought as much." Miles said with a sigh. "I haven't told her."

"Probably wise. If she appears to be a citizen, she's in less danger. The only difficulty is blood work." Arthur folded his hands thoughtfully. "I believe I can deal with that for a time at least. Are there any embarrassing blood disorders in your family."

"I'm sure you can make one up," Miles said. "Even better, imply that I might not be her father and I don't want her to know."

"We believe in better safe than sorry. So do they." Arthur noted in what Miles gathered was agreement.

"He never mentioned he had a son," Miles said after a pause.

"He wouldn't, would he?" A trace of bitterness entered Arthur's voice.

Miles felt he could safely rule out Arthur as a member of the brethren. The Brethren would kill Mal outright, probably making it look like a car accident or an aneurysm. They would never announce themselves. "Could you enroll in one of my classes?"

"I suppose," Arthur looked uncertain for the first time.

"The son of my friend and my student would have a reason to pop round on occasion." Miles said.

"Then I'll enroll. I'm sure I can come up with the credentials." Arthur smiled with his eyes.


	2. The Vast Machine

Disclaimer: Property of Christopher Nolan and John Twelve Hawks. If anyone wants to know why I disagree with Bentham and Plato, please PM me and I'll happily explain.

* * *

The Vast Machine had some very useful qualities. It stored vast amounts of information in an accessible format. Thousands upon millions of data points existed in various databases on servers spread across the globe. Purchasing statistics, school records, military records, driving records, bank records, Internet browsing histories, medical records, and dozens of other bits of information that were innocuous on their own added up to more complete snapshots than most citizens and drones would believe possible. The upside was that Arthur could find practically anything about anyone, develop a grasp of his or her life, and use that data without ever meeting that person. The downside was that if Arthur wanted to integrate himself into citizen life he needed an equal depth of information.

It was for that purpose that Pendragon had gathered up the identities of a half dozen dead boys roughly Arthur's age; two American, one Brit, one Australian, one German, and one boy who had been born in what used to be Czechoslovakia. When all Arthur wanted to do was travel he used a forged passport. For setting up a safe house, he needed to be someone who lived on the grid. As Arthur had grown up first Pendragon and later, he had added information to those boys' lives. Donny had done poorly in school after fourteen when he discovered girls. Gary had had one minor driving accident at seventeen that had scared him into being a good boy ever since.

Arthur decided on Nicholas, never Nick. Nicholas was an American boy, Jewish father, lapsed Catholic mother, who had joined the army after high school in order to earn money for college. He had served without distinction and had the good and bad fortune to be discharged a week before his squad died when their vehicle was hit by an I.E.D. After that, he had backpacked around Europe for six months, searching for his calling. Nicholas had purchased a pack of condoms at a drugstore in Amsterdam, some bottled water in Hamburg, and other similar purchases but preferred to deal in cash. To Arthur, Nicholas was the one most likely to study architecture in Paris.

Focusing on Nicholas, Arthur began deciding Nicholas's taste in clothing, music, literature, and food. He arranged things so that Nicholas had come into a little money when his mother died and had lived frugally during his travels in Europe. Arthur was going to get Nicholas a job in Paris to fund his living expenses while he went to school.

He contacted a Harlequin who went by the name Linden to let him know that Arthur would be in the area fulfilling his obligation. By the time Nicholas sat in Professor Miles's lecture hall, he was wearing a nice pair of slacks and a white button up shirt. His hair was a little messier than Arthur's was and he looked at the Professor with an expression of earnest interest. Nicholas noted the exits and sized up his classmates. He couldn't help it; it was something left over from Iraq.

Behind the mask of Nicholas, Arthur noted the placement of the security cameras. He made sure not to touch things that could be dusted for prints and wiped down his apartment regularly.

The first time Arthur met Mal he was struck by how lovely she was. A carefree, beautiful woman who appeared to enjoy life.

"This is Arthur," Miles introduced them. "He's one of my new students. More determined than gifted I'm afraid but he's already outdoing the geniuses who think they can skate by."

Arthur gave the impression of a smile without moving his lips. "My name is Nicholas but everyone calls me Arthur. My dad and my mom's grandma had a disagreement." He offered his hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Arthur. I'm Mal." Mallorie Miles smiled at him. He reflected how rare that was. Most people just smiled in his direction.

"The pleasure is all mine, miss." Arthur's lips curved up and his eyes crinkled with the force of his smile.


	3. Passive Symbolism

Disclaimer: Property of Christopher Nolan and John Twelve Hawks.

Note: Since the timeline for the Traveler is vague (Alice Chen appears to go from being nearly 11 to 12 over the course of what looks like about 8 months) I'm writing it like Mother Blessing started hiding out on Skellig Columba around the time Mal jumped and the events of The Traveler take place immediately after Inception.

A lot of the rules I set up here come from two observations. Eames can pull a PASIV out of a bag that's too small in his dreams but Arthur has to go back for the C-4 in his. Fischer's secret is symbolized by a pinwheel and Saito's is a set of business documents.

* * *

The first time Arthur used the PASIV was at Miles's request. Cobb's first impression of Arthur was that the man was too young to look so serious. His second impression was that Arthur had to be the most rigid dreamer in the entire study.

Mal could look at a box and pull anything out of it; mundane things, impossible things, and things that shouldn't fit inside. If it were Cobb's dream he could pull out things that could fit in the box, things he felt ought to be there and sometimes things he imagined might be in the box. Arthur knew what was in his boxes and nothing else could be found in them. If it had a gun in it, then it would always have a gun in it and never a billiard ball or a goldfish or even a different brand of gun.

According to Miles, Arthur's presence in the dream was to deal with projections. The projections were the major hurdle at the stage of exploration that Cobb had reached. He wanted to know what was possible in a dream, why people dreamed in different ways, how far the physics could be bent before they broke and always the study of what secrets these things revealed about dreamer and subject.

Cobb's initial studies with the military had taught him a great deal about the sorts of secrets soldiers carried with them. After a while he could almost always guess a soldier's rank without asking by the way they dreamed. The elasticity of the dreamer's mind and its focus had more to do with their emotional state and upbringing than recent history. Following Miles's suggestions had gained him access to even more information. The trouble was that the information was bound up in symbols known only to the subject. Cobb and Mal knew each other well enough that they could accurately guess the meanings behind the symbols but Cobb wanted something he could apply over a broader range.

He understood why people would be reluctant or unable to tell him exactly what their subconscious' private language meant. It was still frustrating to constantly find himself holding secrets in his hands and have no idea what to put down in his documentation. Even if the secret he retrieved was a blue marble saying that felt wrong. At the same time saying that it might symbolize "something lost in childhood or from childhood" or "a gift given at an important time" was all very vague and made him sound like a quack.

That was why Arthur's first time as the dreamer was such a startling revelation.

Mal opened the safe and pulled out a set of glossy photographs of herself. She laughed as she showed them to Cobb. "This is your secret?"

"That's remarkably straightforward," Cobb squinted at the snap shots of his favorite moments with his fiancee.

Arthur looked at them with polite curiosity.

"They look like real photos," Cobb said, marveling. "Every time we've done this before it was never this clear."

"Arthur has a deep-rooted conviction that a cigar is just a cigar." Mal smiled.

They tested that again and again. Always when Cobb or Mal was the dreamer the symbols were inscrutable but when they tried again with Arthur there were pictures and documents. That was when Cobb started running the tests with the boxes. They found that the flexibility the dreamer showed was reflected in the dreamscape as a whole.

In one of Mal's dreams or one of his own, Cobb could rummage around in his pockets and come up with spare rounds in a hurry. In Arthur's, on the other hand, however many bullets he had was it. It was for Arthur's dreams that Mal and Cobb started planning layouts with extra weapons caches.

That began Arthur's side project; an experiment in guns. In dreams where he could have any gun he wanted it took Arthur a while to settle on what he wanted. Plastic guns, ceramic guns, guns that weren't made anymore, and guns that could be found anywhere. The fascination with firearms wasn't a surprise. Cobb had read Arthur's file. What was a surprise was what happened the first time they were cornered and out of ammunition.

The reason the military training application had fallen through was that repeated exposure to places where danger was literally lurking around every corner turned men into killing machines or destroyed them utterly. The attrition rate was too high for it to be cost effective. Arthur didn't freeze or try to run. He threw himself between Mal and the projections, hitting and kicking. Cobb was gone before the fight finished.

Arthur woke up the same way he always did. One moment he was asleep and the next he was aware and moving.

Cobb watched him carefully. Most of the soldiers who hadn't been able to recover either struggled on waking up or went quieter than usual. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Arthur looked faintly surprised at Cobb's concern.

"Most people... don't react well to that." Cobb said carefully.

"I'm not most people," Arthur said confidently.


End file.
